CALIFORNIA & DIVISION CO-LIVING

pROPOSAL

With the recent surge in popularity of shared workspaces and co-working, the obvious next step is co-living. This project was designed as 32 four-bedroom apartments similar to popular student housing suites provided on many college campuses. In this case the project is catered to work-force housing and professionals. The building also offers additional amenity space in the form of a central courtyard, movie rooms, and a landscaped roof. Tying the project to its Humboldt Park neighborhood, a partnership with Sobremesa Chicago created a ground floor space designed to feed, nourish, and inspire community members, networks, & other businesses to engage in joint efforts to boost inclusive economic growth for the Puerto Rican community. This space was conceived to center around the notion of food, a hybrid restaurant in which people come for meals, but also to use the space in other capacities during non-restaurant hours. Rather than proposing a project driven by the economics of the residential proforma, as most development deals are structured, paying little attention to the leftover retail component, we attempted to authentically engage with a local neighborhood business in creating a program that would benefit the community. Unfortunately, the alderman's intention for the site did not coincide with ours, and his prerogative ultimately won approval.